Ellis writes his column today about the SOS’s office and their recent stumblings;
Jason Gant, the South Dakota secretary of state, hasn’t been living a care-free, happy-go-lucky summer.
Gant is the subject of much talk these days in political circles and the Internet, mostly of the undesirable kind. His latest problem came to light after Scott Ehrisman, a local blogger who runs Southdacola.com, found that Gant’s deputy, Pat Powers, was moonlighting on the side by operating a political merchandising firm, doing mailings and printing on behalf of candidates.
To some, it’s not a big deal. So what if a guy — Powers — has a second business?
To tell you the truth, when I first posted about it, I didn’t think much of it either. I knew when Pat was running DWC that he had the business, so, I just assumed he stopped doing it when he started working for the SOS, even if the site was still up. I assumed wrong. It wasn’t like this site was just ‘floating’ out there. Powers was selling campaign material to a candidate his boss endorsed. (he lost BTW). But that was only half of an evolving story. The Senator that filed the complaint against Gant’s office added this tidbit recently over on Madville Times;
What is this new discussion of the “Gant Group,?†What is meant by changing the address and rewriting the “documentary timeline for Jason Gant’s private consulting business, the Gant Group.â€
Since when does the Secretary of State or for that matter any Constitutional Officer have a “PRIVATE†consulting business? Explain how a full time State employee could be shameless enough to discuss adjusting his own private business from a State Constitutional office!!
I will have some interesting data and questions to submit to the Attorney General in connection with my requested investigation next week.
State Senator Stanford Adelstein
As another commenter added, it is time to go National with this story. NPR, are you listening?
UPDATE: I found Gant as chair to this PAC an interesting conflict of interest. I guess the Dems tried to make hay about this last year but nobody was listening. Maybe now is the time to get out the bailer twine. (I took a screenshot just in case the link plays musical chairs on us.)
